Thursday, April 9, 2015

DOCUMENTARY PROBES SUICIDES IN 'DEATH TOWN'

The little town of Bridgend in South Wales (population 39,000) has earned the unwanted nickname of Death Town because an estimated ninety-nine young people have been found hanged there since 2007. Many in the town believed a serial killer was at large, others
assumed it was a suicide cult. The deaths have struck fear and unrest
into the hearts of most. Many of the victims were pretty young
girls who typically do not commit suicide by violent methods. I don't usually plug movies, but a documentary film, Bridgend, investigates the events that caused the sleepy little town to become the subject of gruesome speculation across the United Kingdom and is worth seeing.

Writer and director John Williams spent five years in the town and he says: "When I went
to Bridgend to investigate the rumors, I was bullied and threatened. The
police and government officials refused to be interviewed or even
provide a statement or confirm the number of deaths."

With the help of private investigators and interviews with family members and friends of the victims, he uncovered the tragic stories behind the deaths and traces the final hours of many of the victims. One boy laid out his suit to attend his friend’s
funeral, and hours later walked to a tree next to the one where the
friend had died and hanged himself. Another girl was found hanging in a
bathroom just hours after hearing of the suicide of her younger cousin. A
young man, having attended several of his friends’ funerals, ended his
life in a children’s park after arriving home from a night at the pub.
Within weeks, two of his ex-girlfriends were also dead by the same
method.

The stories leading up to the tragic deaths are varied, but they
are starkly alike in their endings. The victims are left hanging from
coat jackets or cell phone cords or ropes, from playground slides or
banisters or the back of a closet door.

Debate still
rages over the causes behind the hanging deaths and the
numbers continue to rise

“I spoke with
and befriended so many families in this town including one individual who swore
to me that he would never kill himself but then committed suicide after
the first cut of the documentary was done," says Williams. "I was horrified. I lived in
this town and saw the grief and devastation– we need more awareness on
this topic.”